Historic 'La Pointe'

Thursday

Jul 24, 2014 at 2:36 PMJul 24, 2014 at 2:37 PM

By Deborah Gardner Walkersalem@wickedlocal.com

Salem is best known as a City of witches, sea captains and august writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne, who once lived here. What is lesser known is that Salem is a city that has welcomed several waves of immigrants – the English, French, Irish, Italian and Dominican -- who have shaped the city's economic and social life and continue to bring cultural and linguistic diversity to its streets.Salem State University professors and oral historians Elizabeth Blood, Ph.D. and Elizabeth Duclos-Orsello, Ph.D., both experts in the French language and culture, have been working together to educate people about Salem’s forgotten immigrants – French Canadians who came down from Quebec to work in the city’s mill, starting in the mid-19th century, and at one time were the city’s largest ethnic group.The two Elizabeth’s have developed both an oral history project to capture the stories of some of Salem’s remaining Franco-Americans and a walking tour that highlights La Pointe (the Point), the neighborhood French-Canadians called home for more than a century.Blood and Duclos-Orsello put together their tour several years ago for Historic Salem, Inc. (HSI) and continue to offer the tour on occasion. They also have created a printable self-guided tour, which can be downloaded from their website. The neighborhood has recently been nominated to be on the National Register as a National Historic District.This writer and photographer, of French Canadian heritage herself, followed the steps of the fascinating tour to take photographs last weekend. The tour highlights landmarks, such as social clubs, business and homes, as well as hidden clues -- names on buildings such as Napoleon -- that demonstrate the city’s rich Franco-American past.Blood and Duclos-Orsello gave a special tour last month that showed how the Point neighborhood had changed physically as a result of the Great Salem Fire in 1914. All but one building – even the mill where the French worked – was burned to the ground and then rebuilt. The architecture and building codes were changed to help prevent such a disaster from happening again.Blood and Duclos-Orsello add life to their tour by sharing touching memories and stories from Salem’s French residents that they interviewed for their oral history project. Those stories showed what people from the old neighborhood thought was most important about their past and it guided Blood and Duclos-Orsello in choosing what to highlight on the tour.Out-of-towners who trace their roots back to La Pointe enjoy seeing where their grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles once lived. "Many have an interest in their history. They have heard older relatives speak about their grandfather’s corner store, for example," said Blood.The unassuming corner of Park and Dow has special significance, because it was home to Salem’s two most famous Franco-American public servants – former Mayor Jean Levesque and retired Chief of Police Robert St. Pierre."Bob St. Pierre grew up in an apartment above the market," Blood said, pointing to a photograph of a small, non-descript home. "Across the street, Jean Levesque was raising his family. Here’s where the future chief of police and the future mayor lived, both descendants of immigrants."Lower Lafayette was where the French went to socialize. The Klondike building, which was located in what was more recently the Strega restaurant, was a big French social club where big parties and wedding receptions were held, according to Blood.Armand Devoe, a retired Salem High School teacher who grew up in La Pointe, took the tour and was struck by the beautiful details of the buildings, said Blood. "Armand saw the neighborhood differently on the tour than when growing up. He said that he didn’t appreciate it back then."Referring to the architecture of La Pointe, Duclos-Orsello commented, "The brick work alone is stunning. The examples of Colonial/Greek revival work are very under appreciated in that part of the city."Evidence of the L’Hereux family’s entrepreneurship can also be seen on the tour. "Orille & Roger L’Hereux’s grandfather owned the subway market in the basement of the old Town Hall," said Blood."Ghost markers" for the market can be seen where the color of the bricks change, creating a faint, rectangular outline of the entrance to the old market, added Duclos-Orsello."When a neighborhood is a place that you call home, you love it. This was a loving neighborhood and that’s what makes it important to the people we interviewed. Today, it is still a neighborhood of people," said Duclos-Orsello.Visit Blood and Duclos-Orsello’s website to learn more about Salem’s Franco-American history, read the oral histories and download a self-guided walking tour. http://lrc.salemstate.edu/blood/Salem_as_Little_Canada.htm.